A Few Tidbits From the Weekend.

So the holidays have come and gone and, as tends to happen with my world, it's been an interesting couple of days. I did the regular thanksgiving deal with the family and eating too much turkey, and meeting up with my buddy Pete and his crew for post-dinner drinks and fun.

Friday, I helped a friend shell two pounds worth of pecans for a pie competition which he was going to wage with a baking rival the following day. Always glad to help, I was a little let down that I didn't get a chance to taste the fruit of my labors. Still it was something I never thought I'd be doing.

Speaking of things I never thought I'd be doing, I can label one thing I did on Saturday night under that header as well: I rode a mechanical bull. I won't go into the specific details of exactly how all this happened, but suffice it to say that I got snookered into that "If I go, you have to go" mentality, and wound up on the back of a mechanical bull. I'd like to think I did okay as far as all that goes. Sure, it scrambled my eggs ever so slightly, but all in all, I wasn't terribly let down by the whole experience, and would even be willing to do it again sometime given the opportunity.

Over the weekend I also exposed some friends to various awesome bands and music, as well as re-discovering some gems that I'd overlooked for a while. For those of you who have it: check out Rilo Kiley's early stuff -- as much as I love "Under the Black Light" I think that "The Execution of All Things" might actually be their best work. Also, I have rekindled the flame I have for Scandinavian singers, mainly Sondre Lerche and Jens Lekman. I don't know exactly how they do what they do, but man do they do it well. I hope that someday I can tap into my inner Swede and make some music like that.

Speaking of making music like that, I set up my new four track, and I'm convinced that no matter how long I may own it, I will never possibly be able to use it up to its peak abilities. Why, you ask? Oh, it might have something to do with the fact that the instruction manual is eighty five freakin' page long. Or the fact that it comes with a separate sub-instruction manual dedicated strictly to the various ways to transfer recordings from the four track to whatever form of media I desire. Granted, if I can harness its power, I will be able to create music to my heart's desire with all sorts of cool add-ons and features, but at this rate, I'll be thirty by the time I really understand how to get this baby humming.

Well, that's all for me tonight. I guess this was a tad more personalized than I usually get with my postings but hey, I haven't really been out and about all that much this weekend in comparison to everyone else I know who had amazing tales of all the exciting travels and activities that that the holiday weekend entails. Also, I am purposefully omitting a picture since I don't have in my possession a picture of myself riding the bull.

Thankful.

So throughout the course of the evening tonight, I have been trying to come up with some sort of "all the things I'm thankful for" special blog posting. At the moment, I am beginning to think that I might not be able to really get everything together. Then I kicked around the idea of going bitter and spiteful and focusing on the things I'm not thankful for. But if I were to do that, I might well be considered a dick; and the people who thought that would not be wrong.

So I'll be brief, I'll be generally un-sentimental, and I'll do everything I can not to be a dick.

More than anything I am thankful that I have a job. Let's not beat around the bush, here: times were tight, I'd dipped about as far into my savings as I possibly could, and I was scarcely scraping by with the work I had. Better yet, I still have a job at the moment, despite the economic climate at the moment. I guess you'll have to check back with me after Black Friday to see just how comfortable and secure that employment remains, but in the meantime I have a good job and even better co-workers.

I'm thankful for all my friends. I like to believe that I express my thankfulness to them on a regular basis, but this is a great excuse to say it again. As happy as I am to have the great friends who have stuck around with me through all these years, I am equally thankful for an additional batch of newfound friends. Saturday nights at Gestalt may never be the same.

I'm thankful for my health -- barring the sore throat I've had for the last few days, I've been fit as a fiddle. I chalk it up to my regimen of alcohol, small amounts of sleep, and borderline-obsessive hand washing.

I am also thankful for all of you. Granted, most of you were covered in the friend section, but those of you who are just casual readers, you guys rock. If I wasn't convinced that there were some of you out there enjoying what I write and all that jazz, I probably wouldn't do this.

I will balance all this out by saying that there are a number of things I look forward to changing in the next year or so, which means it isn't all sunshine and pixie dust, but hey, I've got the rest of the year to gripe and groan. So for today, I eagerly await eating to the point of discomfort then sleeping like the dead.

Dinosaur Comics.

From Qwantz this morning. I felt that due to the literary references, this one had to be shared:



In case you're unfamiliar with Dinosaur Comics, the mouseover text is every bit as important as what is on the page.

Do you tweet?

Probably two months ago or so, I started a Twitter account. To tell you the truth, at the get-go, I didn't even have a whole lot of reason as to why. I just figured as someone employed as a blogger, I should have as much knowledge as possible of all the various social networking sites. Plus, it was a generally easy thing to keep up while at work.

However, I have noticed that it has suddenly blown up in the past few weeks. All of a sudden, networks are growing, people are mobile tweeting all over the place (there are at least three separate twitter apps for the iPhone that I know of), and the whole thing is starting to get absurd. So, while I applaud the powers that be at Twitter for resisting a sale to Facebook, I am still curious as to see what will be happening in the coming weeks and months over there. Moreover, with mass layoffs all over the tech industry, how much longer can this continue. I mean, we see enough of FailWhale as it is, and what will happen as you have a mix of celebs who are getting tweeted at all the time, as well as those internet troll types who feel the need to obsessively tweet about the fact that they woke up, took a shower, and turned on their computer (all from their iphone before they have logged on to the website)? Will this microblogging craze take over, gradually pushing myspace into obscurity now that it is almost officially the slowest site on the internet? Plus, will people on Twitter realize that there are many more fun and interesting ways to take advantage of your account than to simply give status updates?

If you don't have an account, check it out - I will admit that it is pretty addictive. If you have one already, I hope we're following each other. Otherwise I'd just be sad.

Generational difference, or OCD?

Allow me to relate a story to you: so this year, thanks to the wondrous generosity of my company, I am pretty light on Christmas wishes. So I decided to be blunt as always with my parents, who seldom have the slightest clue as to what they should get me. So I decided to shoot it straight -- I just want a new desk chair. At the moment, my butt's receptacle is old and worn out. It was once a comfortable, well-crafted chair I'm sure, but it has got to be at least forty years old at this point. The leather has worn off the two corners at the front. One wheel falls of any time there isn't direct pressure on it, the leather on the seat is cracked and ripped, and a spring comes up through the hole, as the three separate snags on my pajama pants will attest to. Plus, it squeaks and squeals like an old jalopy any time I turn, recline, or even shift my weight.

So needless to say, while it had a long and fruitful career, it's time to retire this bad boy. I have my eyes on one of those sweet mesh-back dealies with the lumbar support and all that jazz. This is exactly what I told my folks. What precipitated from this description was a visit from my dad later that evening in which he tried to sell me on the idea of him fixing the wheels, having the chair reupholstered, and possibly replacing the springs.

So, this got me thinking: is this a generational difference? Are the prior generations more inclined to keep things in their possession and fix them up? Are we, as the new generation a product of our disposable culture? Are we more inclined to throw things out in favor of a new replacement, while prior generations had to get more use out of their stuff? Or is it just that my dad has a general inability to throw much of anything out? Not exactly a critique of my old man, but this is an honest-to-goodness question that has been plaguing the back of my mind for the last few months now.

Like no life you've ever lived.

Let me preface this by saying I'm not really an amazing world traveler. I enjoy traveling, I love taking in other countries, but I don't necessarily have the bank account or the freedom to travel like I wish. I know I could, but it's just not one of my top priorities.

So I'm sitting here on my couch watching a DVD of Henry Rollins do spoken word. This is one of my great joys in life - the man can talk like no other, he' intelligent as all hell, and his stories are fucking hilarious. The first spoken word album of his, he critiques the TV show "Friends" and rightfully so. But he uses the title of this posting as a line to describe the lives the characters lead. And it's true. While my friends and I may frequent coffee shops on the regular, we have next to nothing in common with those lovable TV scamps.

But I digress.

Anyhow, the one thing that strikes me about Rollins is that while he has amazing insights into damn near everything, and can probably make the dictionary an interesting read if he read it aloud and commented upon it, I still think that he is most amazing because his day-to-day life leads him to absurd situations. For a living, he travels the globe. He is constantly surrounded by interesting people, most of them celebrities. He plays shows to hundreds of thousands of people, and even does spoken word performances to hundreds of people at a time. Imagine that: having hundreds of people come from far and wide just to sit around and listen to you talk. Damn near every night. And it's totally worth it. But still, Henry has a life like no life I have ever lived, no life my friends have ever lived. I have heard him tell stories of playing on fjords in Finland, open-air stadiums in Brazil, playing at a Russian mob-owned casino, and all sorts of exotic locales. He tells stories about a rivalry with Iggy Pop, or his occasional get togethers with Ozzy Osbourne. I don't know that much of anyone who spends eight hours a day in a cubicle or working retail can tell stories like that. Intense like him? Sure. Stories like him? No. It's watching someone like Rollins that I find fascinating.

So what does someone like me do? I have the occasional mishap on MUNI (kind of like the puddle of Fruit Punch on the seat of the train today that allllllmost blended in enough with the seat for someone to sit in... but it didn't happen) or the interesting observations of assorted characters. Still, I don't have much to draw from. I guess that's why no one is paying me to hang out and tell stories of my day-to-day life. At least not yet they don't.

Long story short: check out Henry Rollins' spoken word. It's awesome. It's inspiring to everyday mooks like myself.

On water skis, hopping over Jaws.

It almost pains me to say this... almost.

Family Guy; I fear you have jumped the shark.

I was more than willing to ride things out with some of last season's episodes, ADD though they may have been. I was willing to look the other way when you tried a few zany contrivances. I chalked them up to ironic usage. I was even willing to forgive the increased instances of your quirky little pop culture references.

But this season, it has all changed. In case you have forgotten, Family Guy, there is this little thing called "plot" and from all of my experiences in studying literature and the like, I hear that it is somewhat important to a narrative. Alas, you have neglected that goofy convention we call plot in the favor of cramming in as many cut-to-scenes as possible in a half hour television program. If I have to hear Peter say "That reminds me of the time..." again, I just might lose it. You see, those little dalliances into absurdist pop culture and eighties nostalgia can only take an effort so far. When there are fifteen minutes devoted to that, and seven or eight minutes of plot, max, there can't be much of a story going on.

Please, Family Guy, for the good of your show, and for all those fans who fought and petitioned so fervently to bring you back from the depths of obscurity, go back to writing stories and throwing a few cut scenes here and there, instead of writing a miniature story to tie together your cut scenes. Take a lesson from the Simpsons (again) and take stock of where you went wrong and address the problem instead of plowing blindly headfirst into the rubbish bin.

If and when you do right the ship, I'll be there waiting for you. Until then, strap on your water skis and look out for hostile creatures under the surface waiting to snap. Which reminds me of the time that I got kicked out of Sea World...